Officials Rule Against Bitcoin-Mining Power Plant in New York

New York officials denied required air permit renewals to a bitcoin-mining power plant on the grounds that it was a threat to the state’s climate goals.

The permitting decision was another example of New York putting the brakes on a cryptocurrency bonanza that has alarmed environmentalists. It also comes at a time when cryptocurrency prices have plunged, wiping out fortunes, fueling skepticism and sparking calls for tighter scrutiny.

The state’s permitting decision involved Greenidge Generation, an old coal-fired plant by the shore of Seneca Lake which had once been shut down, but was converted from coal to natural gas several years ago and began bitcoin mining in earnest in 2020.

A majority of the electricity produced by the plant is now used to run more than 15,000 computer servers for bitcoin mining, which guzzles massive amounts of electricity.

In rejecting the renewals, the state Department of Environmental Conservation said the plant’s conversion to a cryptocurrency mining operation meant it was creating a significant new demand for energy “for a wholly new purpose unrelated to its original permit.”

“Instead of helping to meet the current electricity needs of the state as originally described, the facility is operating primarily to meet its own significant new energy load,” the agency said in its letter to the company.